


No river wide enough

by argyleam



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Family, Sadness, movie canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-24
Updated: 2014-08-24
Packaged: 2018-02-14 11:07:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2189382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/argyleam/pseuds/argyleam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drax was a husband and father, once.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No river wide enough

**Author's Note:**

> Beta thanks to Phnelt!

Drax had not just been a husband and father. He had been an _excellent_ husband and father. He had woken every morning and rolled over to look at the sleeping Hovat with a smile on his face. He had prepared the evening meal every night with his own hands, and served it proudly at the long lamp-lit table. He had arranged his shifts at the foundry so that he could meet Kamaria by the gate of the sector school, and they would walk home in the broad cobbled streets at a child's slow pace, the little girl investigating fallen leaves and following after the feral winged-lizards of the capital, hands outstretched as if she could persuade them to be petted instead of darting away, bright under the arches and crevices of the old buildings.

Drax considered fatherhood to be simple good luck, and Kamaria and Drax had loved each other with the simple love of a parent and a young child. Husbandhood was something more complicated. Hovat and Drax had met when they were quite young, and fallen in love accidentally and imperfectly. Hovat was quick-witted and short-tempered; she had continued in her education where Drax had stopped once his apprenticeship began. She worked as a veterinarian, tending to farmer's sick haulbeasts and children's hurt house lizards. She was not, despite this, particularly tenderhearted. They had argued often, about the child, about the job. Drax had often wished to return to his father's village, where the girl could have the benefit of open countryside and a dozen rambunctious cousins. Hovat had wished, with equal fervor, to remain in the city, where the girl could benefit from a modern education.

She and Drax had made love urgently, and then languorously. She had looked across the dinner table, eyes shining in the lamplight, and laughed at a joke their daughter had told - how many haulbeasts does it take to cross the river? The statement is inaccurate; they can only swim if assisted by a flotation device. Hovat had had her own friends, and her work. Her mother had been very ill, when Ronan came, in and out of the city hospital.

Drax had never learned what happened to Hovat's mother. The city was ashes and a few standing walls. Their house was a thing he couldn't look at, or remember: a scrap from a book with a brightly-colored picture of winged lizards. The torn corner of the upholstery of a padded chair.

They had held onto each other, Hovat and Kamaria. He had not been quick enough.

The night before Ronan came, Drax had helped Kamaria pick out her shirt and shoes for school the next day, and laid them out on the bench in the upstairs hallway.

Drax imagined, in his long nights in prison, that first he must start by avenging the shoes, and then avenging the fruit porridge that had been left cooking on the stove when their home was leveled. Then perhaps he could avenge the morning Hovat might have had at the clinic, administering pills to angry lapbeasts, and the lunch she might have eaten, and the walk she might have taken.

If Ronan died a thousand times it would not avenge the last five minutes of his wife and daughters' lives. If Ronan died a million times it would not avenge the years they had not had. Drax would start simply. He would start with the porridge, and the shoes, and the fact that his wife had set the chronometer in their room early, that day, to be sure that she got to work on time. He would start from there, and maybe when Ronan and Thanos were both dead, and their fleet was so much radioactive dust, it would begin to be equal to a single day they should have had.

He had been an excellent husband and father. It had been the work of his life. He did not intend to stop now.


End file.
